Wild ride injures lone Belle Glade driver

A man in Belle Glade got into his Chevy pickup Christmas morning, threw it in reverse and backed straight into the guard rail across the street, deputies said.

After a series of other high-speed encounters with a fence and then a tree, Michael Staples, 53, was taken to Delray Beach Medical Center with injuries from his single-car wreck, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office report.

Authorities say Staples was backing out of a driveway near his home on the fringes of Belle Glade in western Palm Beach County about 8 a.m. Tuesday. He slammed into a guardrail and "then rapidly accelerated forward" up the street, according to the report.

Staples crossed Belle Glade's main thoroughfare, State Road 80, "out of control" in his 1994 Chevrolet Silverado, the report said. Then he spun around and headed back south toward the driveway, hitting a fence and then eventually stopping against a tree.

Staples' condition and the cause for his erratic driving were unclear Tuesday night.